Welcome to 2007, a good time to dust off that tired annual resolution to eat less and better. This time break on through to the other side by departing from the usual Asian faves.
Instead, visit Han Kang Korean Restaurant in Aurora for a big bowl of Yook Gae Jang, a spicy vegetable-beef soup ($7.99); Bibimbob, a traditional dish ($7.99); or O-Jinguh Bokum ($8.99), a highly seasoned blend of stir-fried squid, onions, peppers, carrots and zucchini. All menu items, except soups, are served with rice.
The o-jinguh bokum and bibimbob are not only fun to say, they are served with a half-dozen side dishes – marinated seaweed, pickled potato cubes, steamed scrambled egg with scallion, pickled turnip, fried tofu and kimchi, that wonderfully, wickedly spicy pickled cabbage served with just about everything.
The soup is generously laced with tofu and a range of slivered familiar and unfamiliar greens afloat in a richly flavored broth loaded with what are sometimes called “cellophane” noodles.
If you’re of the carnivorous persuasion, the bibimbob is just the thing. Served in a deep bowl, the dish is layered over a mound of rice with bean sprouts, julienned strips of carrots and pickled turnip and finished with shredded leaf lettuce topped with a sunny-side up egg. Protein aplenty.
If I were to compare Korean food to other Pacific
Rim cuisines, I would label
it “soul food,” no pun intended. It’s Asian food with twist, an edge, a delightful difference rooted in deep flavors rather than the gentle aromatics usually associated with Japanese or Chinese foods, with the possible exception of Szechuan.
At Han Kang the food is prepared as you order it. There are 21 soups and stews to choose from, ranging in price from $8.99 to $13.99, with the ox tail ringing at at $10.99 and worth every penny.
I recommend the pork neck bone soup with potato, which reminded me of a dish my mother made for our Saturday meal when we were kids.Sub out navy beans in that old recipe for potatoes, forget about cornbread and substitute kimchi for coleslaw.
New Year, new tastes.
The barbecue and stir-fry menu items are reasonably priced ($9.99 to $22.99 for such dishes as Nak Ji Somyun, octupus with vegetables (which is only prepared for two).
Everything on the menu is filling, but neither fat- nor calorie-and-cholesterol-laden. So in addition to being easy on the pocketbook, this family- owned restaurant will be kind to your waistline.
So start the new year right: Break on through to the other side.
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Cheap eats |
By Ellen Sweets Denver Post Staff Writer
Han Kang Korean Restaurant
Korean|1910 S. Havana St., Aurora (northwest corner of East Jewell Avenue, next to Sir Loin Meat Shoppe 303-873-6800 |$7.99-$24.99|Monday – Satur-day, 8 a.m. 10 p.m.; Sunday 8 a.m. 9 p.m. Visa, MC, American Express, Discovery.
Front burner: Meal prepared when ordered; ample parking, friendly service.
Back burner: A post-blizzard caveat: Be careful pulling onto Havana; a mountain of snow and ice obscures the view. Better to exit the back way onto Jewell and turn with the light.
